I know, odd to ask a question regarding your puppy…being this is a foodie blog — however, we are picking up our little black lab puppy in a couple weeks…wondering how you trained Bo to stay behind the line??!! He was stellar! And he’s absolutely adorable! Oh, and…just happened upon your blog and will be trying out some of your favs in Salt Lake this weekend as we pass thru! Thank you!

Hi Melissa!! Not an odd question at all! That is SO exciting!! Labs are the best. My dad and husband have both used a hunting training method. We haven’t even taken our pup hunting yet, but it’s a really good methodology and it’s great training for retrieving too. I recommend using this book, Game Dog, or something along those lines. We were really lucky too because my husband works from home so he was always there to implement all the training throughout the day. We also feel like a big reason why our dog is so good is 1) his temperament- we made sure to pick out the most docile dog because they tend to be less of the pack leaders and are typically more obedient and 2) we never caved when our dog wanted to break the rules including sitting on the couch, going into areas of the house we didn’t want him in, etc. We really feel like being consistent even when it’s hard makes a world of a difference. I hope that helps! Good luck with your new pup and hope you found some good food during your travels! 🙂